"The Customer Is Always Right"

[FrogReaver]

If they are chats with a live person, yes, I much prefer them than calling for many companies. Automated chats, however, I've found to be useless. Generally, I have already searched for solutions to my problem before contacting support, so the automated chats are giving me non-relevant suggestions I've already read and determined are not solutions. But chats with live people often get you to a live person more quickly than when on the phone and, when you do have to wait for them to start the chat, or look something up, or escalate, it is just less annoying to me than having to listen to the hold music on a speaker. Further, I can share screen shots and I have a transcript. Because there is a written transcript I don't need to repeat myself as much. Chat messaging with live support has been one of the few rare improvements in customer service in the past 20 years in my experience.

Also usually no language barrier.

 

[MNblockhead]

On the OP topic, not only do I believe it is important to treat people respectfully, but I think it is even more important to have the discipline to remain polite in the face of lack of politeness and even disrespect. That doesn't mean being a push over. You can be politely assertive. Sometimes people are not in a good place mentally, for a variety of reasons. Responding in kind rarely improves the situation.

Further, at my age, some things just aren't worth the drama and wasted time. I'm lucky to be in a good place financially these days, so getting worked up and spending hours of my time over even a few hundred dollars, just isn't worth it for me. I realize for others, that may be the difference in being able to afford groceries or pay the rent, but I think most people would be better off occasionally taking a small loss than expending so much unpleasant effort out of principle.

One downside of this philosophy is that I'll often write off a vendor or service provider without giving them a second chance or even feedback. But I just don't feel inclined to bother. I would rather move on and find places and people I like and spread the word about them. I've gotten pretty good at quickly dropping vendors and service providers who are less than stellar until I find good fits and tend to remain a loyal customer for years.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

First rule was, you can't hang up. No matter what. And you can't tell customer to hurry up. If someone want's to hog the line with nonsense, you need to talk to them. Catch is, performance is measured by how fast do you deal with customer problems. As lv 1 support,you are reading off script (there is list of common problems and solutions). So, yes, i was obliged to tell people to turn off and on their router, even though most of them already did that. And then if they say they did it, you clik it, next prompt comes up, then tell them something else, and like that until it's resolved or program tells you to contact level 2 support.

It is a job that you visibly didn't enjoy and that probably wasn't very enjoyable by the general customers, given the number of people who are irritated by the inability of the human they are interacting with to deviate from the script and asking to do things they have already done, and insisting they do again.

Do you have any idea why companies continue to hire people for level 1 support while they could have a recorded disc doing that? ("reboot your router, if it solved the problem, press 1, if not, press 2" and only having "if your problem persists, press 1 to speak to a support representative" at the end of the disc)? The experience woud be roughly the same for the customer since the script would be followed, without the added grief of having a real person that doesn't listen (or is paid not to listen but to follow the script*), it would be less expensive for the company than hiring people, and it would free the employees to do more interesting things.

* = I think in general, customers would understand that a recorded message can't take initiative, it's the fact that they are obviously dealing with someone that makes them unhappy with the interaction...

 

[GrimCo]

Cause people hate talking to machine and want to talk to living person. Even if you can't deviate from the script when it comes to problem solving, at least you know there is person on the other side. If other person is normal and you have some people skills, even if you can't solve problem, you can at least talk to them and calm them a bit. Also, voice recording can't check their payments status. Sometimes people would get disconnection cause they had unpaid bill from months prior ( bill was lost in mail, they forgot to pay, whatever). So you can remind them and tell them that they just need to pay it and as soon as system flag it as payed, they'll have their phone/internet back. Also, voice recording can't check if they are in the area where there is maintenance work and services are temporary unavailable. And to be fair, most of people that called were decent and about 80% of problems were resolved pretty fast. I had few calls from elderly people who were just lonely and phone trouble was just excuse for some human interaction.

No one enjoyed that job. Pay was crap and most of us were students. Only good thing is, since it's 24/7/365 support, you can book shifts so it doesn't interfere with schedule at university.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If they are chats with a live person, yes, I much prefer them than calling for many companies. Automated chats, however, I've found to be useless.

In my recent experience, they aren't separate things; they'll start with an automated chat, which will connect you to a human if its not (as usual) working. Even that combo is faster than winding your way down the phone tree IME, and occasionally the automated chat actually can handle it if its simple, and I don't have to find out if the phone system's voice recognition is worth a damn.

Generally, I have already searched for solutions to my problem before contacting support, so the automated chats are giving me non-relevant suggestions I've already read and determined are not solutions. But chats with live people often get you to a live person more quickly than when on the phone and, when you do have to wait for them to start the chat, or look something up, or escalate, it is just less annoying to me than having to listen to the hold music on a speaker. Further, I can share screen shots and I have a transcript. Because there is a written transcript I don't need to repeat myself as much. Chat messaging with live support has been one of the few rare improvements in customer service in the past 20 years in my experience.

Yeah, the latter pretty much fits my experience.

 

[aramis erak]

I'll note that I've occasionally complained about managers being rude...

I've also, on a few occasions, seen employees go above and beyond, and let management know.

In one case, the management I let know about an employee going above and beyond, I didn't realize the friend I was mentioning it to was now the General Manager. (Stocker took time to help a customer with cerebral palsey... on his break.)

And then there's the gal who got fired due to being a jerk to me and my upstairs neighbor as employees... and got herself fired from at least 2 more stores (of different national chains) for making racist comments when I walked in, and one other she was coming in for an interview, saw me and went off... and got informed she was tresspassing; when she pointed out she was there for an interview, the manager gave her 30 seconds to leave, then called and told national about her... she was blackballed. Last I saw her, she was being forcibly removed from the McD's where she worked. Guy behind me in line happened to be a McD's national inspector... and heard her spew of racist hate from the line. Had the GM there in minutes and she was blackballed nationally. In a sick way, I really have to thank her... I and my friends got free food that evening, and I was given a free meal ticket. She was claiming I got her fired from 6 jobs... I don't know what all of them were, but, really, she did it to herself. I only complained once about her. In 1988. As an employee who was bodily restrained by her after I was scheduled off.

I do sometimes wonder what she's doing for a living... not enough to try to find out.

 

[pukunui]

There’s been a noticeable break down of social mores here in NZ ever since the pandemic. I don’t know about elsewhere, but here, I am seeing an increasing number of retail shops, restaurants, medical clinics and the like with signs indicating they have zero tolerance for the abuse of their staff. More and more of them are having to hire security guards to help keep the peace as well. It’s really sad.

 

[aramis erak]

There’s been a noticeable break down of social mores here in NZ ever since the pandemic. I don’t know about elsewhere, but here, I am seeing an increasing number of retail shops, restaurants, medical clinics and the like with signs indicating they have zero tolerance for the abuse of their staff. More and more of them are having to hire security guards to help keep the peace as well. It’s really sad.

I've not seen a lot of that in Corvallis, Oregon, USA... but what I have seen is a lot less interaction in certain fast food joints.

And a number of restaurants going out of business.

The cashiers at Dollar Tree are actually more chipper now than before Covid.

The staff at the Alsea Merchantile are less standoffish with me, but then again, they've now seen me come in once a month or so for 7 years... they realize I'm quasi-local. (Plus, one of them is one of my daughter's high school classmates.)